Certain systems exist in which a broadcasting device can provide (e.g. broadcasts using a short range wireless communication technology) information that identifies the first device. For example, the information can be a publicly available identifier or an obscured (e.g. encrypted) identifier. An observing entity can receive the information and can communicate with a central verifying entity to learn the identity of the broadcasting device and receive additional information (e.g. semantic information) about the broadcasting device that is stored at the verifying entity. A system configured as described above can be used for various purposes, including communication, information provisioning, asset tracking, retail identification, localization, safety, etc.
However, in the instance in which such systems include a significantly large number of broadcasting devices, the above noted configuration can have several drawbacks. As an example, as the number of broadcasting nodes increase, the airwaves become increasingly crowded with broadcast signals, updates, measurements, or messages. Some of these signals are likely useful and meaningful to a given observing entity (e.g. a smartphone of a user). However, a vast majority of these signals are simply noise and are irrelevant to the observing entity.
Therefore, it is highly inefficient for the observing entity to communicate with the central verifying entity at each instance in which a signal is received, as the vast majority of these communications will result in information that is not useful to the observing entity. In particular, such large number of unnecessary communications can consume vast amounts of communication bandwidth, overload shared communication channels, and can represent a direct cost to an observing entity that is charged by volume of data traffic. In addition, the large number of unnecessary communications can also represent an energy consumption problem, for example, by draining a battery of the observing entity.